If you've watched any footage of Donald Trump recently (the last six months having been somewhat filled with either his face, his voice, or an unpleasant combination of both), you will, I hope, have noticed that he seems to be a rather unhappy kind of person.

Donald is unhappy about a great many things, and I would list them here, but I only have so much time left on the planet and frankly there are better things to do with my life. Suffice to say, he seems pretty pissed off with anything that doesn't fit his personal preferences for how the world should be - which gives him a lot of room for being unhappy. He also seems to have found a great many people (or so the media would have us believe) who are equally unhappy with Donald's - and presumably, their own - lot. This unhappiness and/or anger at the world in general and, in particular anyone who isn't the same as themselves, appears to be at the root of his support. Such a groundswell of miserable bastards makes me wonder about the nature of our societies, and a certain wing of politics in particular.

I used to vote for my home country's Conservative party, and it's fair to say that I was generally speaking, a conservative fellow in most things. I've lived on that side of the political fence, and in those days it seemed pretty obvious that people of a left-leaning persuasion found me and my ilk rather cold, unfeeling and even faintly disgusting by virtue of our opinions. I resented that, and my resentment of the verbal challenges and attacks upon my kind of politics only fuelled my belief that I was - in a strange way - some kind of righteous victim, fighting the good fight for the betterment of my countrymen/women, and mankind in general. It made me bitter and angry towards anyone who didn't see the world my way. I didn't understand how anyone could reasonably see things differently.

I know - it sounds like I was having delusions of grandeur, doesn't it? Maybe they were delusions, but my feelings were genuine, and my opinions - as stupid as I now find many of them to have been - were honestly come by.

I was, however, an unhappy person - in much the same way as Trump and his apparently gormless followers seem to be, and in part because of my beliefs about the world. Mr Trump seems to feel hard done to by everybody - except of course, himself - and anyone who crosses him is instantly attacked in exactly the same way that a playground bully picks on anyone who goes against him. Trump insults his 'enemies' in the most childish - and frankly unintelligent - ways, even stooping to mock by impersonation, a disabled journalist. I think that the last time I did something that low, I was about twelve, and an enlightened teacher showed me both the error of my ways, and the shame that I should rightly feel about behaving in such a way.

Trump is, of course, the current nadir of mainstream right wing lunacy: a man whose ego allows him to believe that anything he does is the right thing, and that only he has the answers (woolly, vague and nonsensical though they may seem to anyone outide of his bubble) to his nation's perceived problems. Unfortunately, he has a rather shocking amount of angry support.

The following that he seems to command (I struggle to deal with the fact that he can fill a bathroom, let alone an auditorium, with like-minded people) is very worrying. That so many people find his nonsense to make compelling sense is, I hope, an eye-opener to our global leaders. That even more people - who paradoxically, seem to consider Trump an idiot despite the fact that only small differences of opinion exists between them - follow his competitors who spout equally ridiculous garbage is downright scary.

I've been on the right wing - not the far right, admittedly, but over that way - and it's not a fun place. It's a place and attitude fuelled by fear of difference, fear of change and fear of anyone who isn't just like ME. It's a dangerous, desperate place, where truth is sacrificed for expediency, and where tolerance is called 'liberalism' and regarded as the excretia of the devil (whom, by the way, right-wingers believe really exists). On the right wing, it's dog eat dog, it's survival of the fittest (unless, of course, you're talking about the theory of evolution, which unlike the bible, is considered not to be factual) and it's rich versus poor. Rich people are good, benevolent beings who simply provide jobs for poor people (who don't work hard enough to be paid a living wage, and who need to try harder). Poor people are necessarily poor - otherwise the economy won't work. Yep. Right.

It's a warped and twisted view of reality, and the fear of anything different feeds the anger towards anyone who dissents. Mr. Trump, that caricature of a politician's ego, should be a laughing stock, a buffoon identified for what he really is: a rich, spoiled and greedy kid who grew up to be a richer, more spoiled and even greedier man. Unfortunately, his anger (real or fake) and his obvious lack of intelligence has proven to be infectious, and a great many stupid people think that he makes sense - even when he is saying nothing which makes any sense at all. It's a little like 'Dubbya', only ebven dumber...

The sad, desperate truth is that there really are that many people out there who are so uneducated or so unintelligent that they believe the man is speaking some kind of revolutionary truth - and that fact should be where our attention goes after the farcical charade of the USA's political race is over. The voting public need to know the truth about the truth.

A world of Trump would be a world of hate, anger, conflict, of breakdown and of social calamity. It already IS, by virtue of the number of people who agree with him, a world of stupid - and the USA is by no means alone in this regard. It's simply the loudest, brashest idiot in the schoolyard at the moment.

The terrorist attack in Paris has sent a shock wave through the western world's media outlets. I doubt very much that it is a wave of sorrow or fear, but I suspect that there was - and remains - a professional thrill that runs through the newsrooms when an event of this nature and magnitude takes place. The fact that it happens regularly in Baghdad or Beirut or any Syrian city is no longer worth making a fuss about, apparently. When, however, the terrorists strike in Europe or North America in particular, the metaphorical trumpets blare, the publishing fireworks (not an oblique reference to explosive devices, by the way) are set off,and the hyperbole machines kick into overdrive.

As the news broke yesterday, I watched the summaries come into the BBC America news feed (it's the only news program I ever catch, and even then as rarely as perhaps two or three times a month) and the enormity and scope of the attacks and of the overall situation became clear. Then, unfortunately, the 'live' interviews from witnesses began to be broadcast, and I switched off, both figuratively and literally. The circus had begun, with incredibly crass questions such as "When you were watching people being killed, how did it make you feel?" and, incredibly: "Can you just tell us exactly how many bodies you can see from where you're sitting at the moment?".

Of course, this is a major news story, but increasingly, media outlets seem to feel that their goal is to try to emotionally immerse the viewer in the scene. That's not news. That's merely salacious, inappropriate and utterly sickening entertainment. The victims become nothing more than elements of a story: subjects of this effort to titillate and keep the viewer's attention. Attention, of course, means ratings - and ratings means advertising revenue.

I don't believe that the public should be spared the sights of this kind of carnage, in much the same way as I believe that battlefield injuries should be broadcast on mainstream media. We, the public, should not be protected from the realities of such things - for one thing, if we are, it is just too easy to make it entertainment. However, news is news, and delving into witnesses' emotions, victims emotions and bereaved relatives emotions is not news - and it's not new. When it comes to genuine horror, terror and sorrow, there is not very much new that can be said; it just gets said by new people. I think it can be assumed by anyone with functioning brain cells, that all the above mentioned people will not be feeling on top of the world - we can guess how they are probably feeling, and having them articulate it for the cameras has no news value whatsoever. Sick entertainment, again.

Finally: the media is always very eager to report upon the politicians' pronouncements in the aftermath of such things. It seems that people in the positions of power around our world must be given air time to tell us all what a bad thing just happened, how they 'condemn' it, and that yes, they are appalled. Zero news value, again, but I suppose they want their voices heard - perhaps in case we all assume that they don't care?

Looking at the coverage online and on TV with a dispassionate eye, it's nothing less than (stand by for a teenage expression which I believe fits the bill) lame. The same strategies, the same questions, the same program format - and all geared towards 'infotainment'. Frankly, it's sickening - and we're all to blame for allowing it, I think.

The truth is that news in its purest form consists of facts, and only facts. It has nothing to do with eye witness emotions or the sorrow of bereaved people - that stuff is best kept for purile daytime television, free from any disguise as good journalism. The other truth is that, as I mentioned, there is nothing new to be said about sorrow, heartbreak, terror. Watching it, digging into it, dragging emotions out of people - that's nothing more morally justifiable than standing at the scene of a car accident and watching people suffer.

The picture you see above is a photo taken from the very recent funeral of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty, not very far from where I grew up in the UK. He was murdered because he was trying to stop a stolen vehicle (filled with items taken from at least one burglary) by laying down a spike strip, with which to cause the tyres to deflate in a controlled manner. He wasn't pointing a gun at anyone, and the men responsible for this cowardly act were unlikely to spend a significant time behind bars once they were caught - in other words, lives were not at stake. Nevertheless, a brave man - a husband and father of two young children - was wiped off this earth because he was doing what the public expected him to do.

There's no debate about the wrongness of his death. If you tried to engage me in a debate about it, I would break the habit of a lifetime and walk away, chiefly to protect you from my instinctive reaction to such disgusting nonsense. I don't, however, expect any of you to be that kind of fool (or any kind of fool, for that matter) - but they are out there. Trust me, they are out there in their droves, and all too frequently they have the loudest voices, and access to a story-hungry media willing to print anything in order to stir up copy-selling controversy. People such as those won't have got themselves past the photo, so it is the reasonable minds that I am addressing.

The thing is: I've been there - in more ways than one. I know the road upon which this man died: it is straight and the view of the point at which he died is clear and unobstructed. The road is a dual carriageway: two double lane roadways separated by a central median strip. There was no need for anyone to be hurt that night - the 'accident' was entirely avoidable. But a man was killed. I've also been 'there' in another sense: I've deployed the same device for the same reasons, and I've felt the momentary "What if he...?" worry about the driver doing something irrational and mowing me down. It's not Hollywood. It's real, and it's going on all around you, every day.

Think about that if your first response to bad news about the police might be "Huh- typical!", or similar, or worse. What's your job? How well does anyone else understand it? And:

How would you feel if a stranger decided that you were an asshole, simply because the last time they met someone with the same job, they had a bad experience?

How would you feel if you were out for an evening with friends, and someone you didn't know started a fight with you because they discovered what you did for a living?

How would you feel if almost everyone you met was of the opinion that they could do your job better than you?

How would you feel if even the people you tried to help tried to hurt you, spat on you, or insulted you in the most vile ways possible?

How would you feel if people ignored the fact that - in unglamorous, yet very real ways - you put your life on the line for complete strangers, because that is what you promised to do?

How would you feel if you lost a colleague in the line of duty, and were taunted about it by a crowd at a sporting event, because that was considered funny?

How would you reflect on your profession if a solitary '"Thank you!" was the only golden ray of sunshine on an otherwise dreary, grey and depressing day?

These are truths - just some of them - that police officers face each and every day. Because they do so, we can go about our lives blissfully unaware that we have just walked past a wanted criminal who will be arrested around the corner and found to be in possession of a large knife. We can blithely watch TV in our homes while across town a cop is performing CPR on a drug overdose victim. We can eat our spaghetti and meatballs and bitch at length about the mess we just made on our shirts because out of sight and sound, someone in uniform is standing behind a halted train, looking down at the remains of what was once a human being. We can get on with our peaceful meal and grumble about how long it took the cops to get there to drag the obnoxious drunk out of the bar, because the cops DID get there and drag the obnoxious drunk out of the bar. In other words, we can get on with out lives and be upset about our petty issues because the police are out there taking care of so much of the other stuff on our behalf.

I doubt that there is any other profession which takes as much open criticism as does the police service. Having left the job many years ago, I've been able to see it from the outside, and I am perfectly willing to accept that no police service is perfect - and neither can it be. I'm prepared to criticize the actions of cops, but my criticism is based upon having been in similar situations, having made countless risk assessments, and having made decisions in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, on almost every occasion, I made it home unhurt. Some did not - and the losses continue.

Yes, there are bad cops: too many bad cops, but then even one bad cop is one too many. The bad cops are, however, a tiny minority, and their appalling behaviour gives society the excuse to be 'cool' and bad-mouth every police officer based upon YouTube videos and salacious news headlines. All police officers may be considered to be as bad as one another, or so it seems.

It's cool to hate ALL police - apparently. Yep it's cool: right up until the moment you find yourself upside down in your car, in a ditch and with water creeping in. Right up until you hear strange noises in the house in the middle of the night. Right up until your neighbour starts throwing dog shit into your garden and at your front door and challenges you to do something about it...Then who do you want? I bet you don't call your dentist.

No, you'd call the police and hope that the person who turns up is the kind of person that the overwhelming majority of my colleagues undoubtedly were: good, honest people with your interests at heart, and willing to put themselves in harm's way on your behalf. The kind of person lying in the casket in the photograph above.

That's what real police officers tend to be: exactly the type of person you would want to come and help you. Think about that the next time you hear someone claiming that they know what all cops are like...how many other people do you know who go to work in the knowledge that because of what they do at work, there is a real chance that they won't come home?

The lesser spotted Piece of Sh*t' Barbeque, seen here outside of its natural environment.

Autumn is now in full swing: brown and yellow shades everywhere and deciduous trees becoming black, gnarly silhouettes against the sky while the evergreens maintain their foliage in a smug, "F*CK YOU!" kind of way. The weather is becoming cooler, windier and wetter, and the geese are all forming their echelons in the sky and heading the heck out of Dodge. The bears will be starting to think about hunkering down for the winter (there's a phrase that I never, ever used before coming to Canada) as their regular food sources dwindle, and soon our gardens will be dominated by robust ravens and crows fighting it out over the rip-off lid for a yoghurt pot.

Another of our most prevalent species will now all but disappear for the winter, too. I speak, of course, of the humble, grease-encrusted, dust-sprinkled and rust-speckled portable barbeque-in-a-truck-bed (BIAT for short). BIATS are a very common sighting in these parts all through the official Redneck Season, which runs from late March through to Halloween. We aren't allowed to actually hunt rednecks during that time, of course, but it isn't really necessary, since their numbers are adequately controlled through self-inflicted death and maiming injuries which occur whenever the aforementioned hicks are within five feet of a firearm or a cooking device.

BIATs are highly distinctive and therefore easy to spot:

1. Always, always, always black...2. ...With some rust.3. Covered in very old coagulated grease and dust4. Usually accompanied by a beaten-up 10lb propane tank of indeterminate age/safety5. Will have a broken utensil rack dangling from two of the legs.6. Habitat: the truck bed of a 1987 Nissan pickup, or any Ford, GMC, Chevy or Dodge pickup manufactured before 1992.7. frequently wedged into place with white plastic chairs.

During the season, these frequent flyers can be seen on any of our main roads, during every trip, no matter how long or short. It's unclear whether they ever actually alight from the truck beds, but the prevailing wisdom is that they do not, their guardians merely transporting them from one back yard party to another, only to be told to "Get that filthy piece of sh*t out of here!". Academics are, however, divided on the subject, and another school of thought is gaining ground - one which postulates that since Rednecks tend not to have any understanding of hygiene principles, the BIATs may well be thoroughly used all through the summer months, and thereby accumulate another layer of protective greasy gunk. It is no doubt an argument that will run and run amongst those with little else to do with their time (academic folks, then).

For now, however, the BIATs have gone into hiding, or to use the technical term: storage. Basement suite yards around the province will now harbour the resident BIAT until winter releases its grip, and another few square inches of rust have been allowed to creep across exposed metal. Some BIATs will enjoy the luxury of being pushed into the front of an over-filled garage, ready to spring out at their human guardians when the temperatures rise once more and the garage door is opened for the first time in months. Others, alas, with their burner long ago defunct and the holes in their trays making even the use of charcoal impossible, will find themselves at the landfill sites, poised over the gaping maw of the garbage containers, until their Redneck masters are told by angry landfill staff to get their asses over to the metal recycling section for Christ's sake, there to permanently abandon their old friends...

Of course, nature always strives towards balance, and with the departure of a generation of BIATs, there will be a new 'Class of 2016' in March, when hitherto useful barbeques begin to develop minor irritating glitches, and migrate mystically towards their natural homes: filthy, battered pickup truck beds, there to travel our highways and byways in the company of their filthy, battered Redneck owners...and so it begins again.

Nope, I'm not posting a photo of any kind, which probably gives you a hint about how I feel about the All Hallows Eve 'festival'. Today is All Souls Day - whatever that means - and I am still suffering (SUFFERING, I tell you!) from a seemingly endless stream of people posting pictures of either themselves or their kids or their friends' kids, or someone else's kids in a series of costumes. Only one of these images has provoked anything other than a tired harrumph - and then only briefly, as I realized that the tiny little mite (about two years old) dressed as a porcupine was looking about as unhappy about it as I was feeling about all the other silly images. I doubt very much that he had any choice in the matter - I strongly suspect that mommy and daddy had dressed him up for maximum cuteness (and I must grudgingly admit, they'd done a good job) in order to parade him in an exhibition of 'performance parenting' (a subject that I have angrily touched upon more than once on these pages) and to take photos for distribution around the fricken universe.

I accept that this makes me sound/read like a curmudgeon, but it's not as if this blog is about me being anything other than an ageing whinger. In my defence, I find it hard to believe that the majority of adults without kids around are not heartily sick of the Halloween silliness, and that they aren't tolerating the whole thing as a result of social norm pressure. It's in this spirit that I write much of what I write here: a voice of dissent in the wilderness of peer pressures and expectations of conformity to social norms. I know, I know: that's a bit grandiose, but you hopefully get the flavour - somebody has to say "Hang on a minute - this is stupid!" when the masses start doing stuff which is patently nonsensical.

Doing the same thing as everyone else (especially anything promoted and promulgated by the performance parent set) goes against the grain. If it's just 'awesome' or 'cute' or 'awesomely cute', I ain't doing it. In fact, to roll with the masses and do what other people do simply because other people do it, seems like a rather pathetic way to live. I'm not, of course talking about things such as obeying the law - that kind of thing is part of the responsibility we share if we wish to enjoy the benefits of an industrialized society - I'm talking mostly about the exceptional stuff that we can do to celebrate events.

I've done the Halloween thing - I've done it for the kids' sake when they were young, and I've enjoyed their enjoyment, and I have no problem with anyone doing the same thing - or not, as they wish. It's the childish sort of "Come on - do as I do or you're somehow a lesser human being!" attitude of some people who are old enough to know it's not funny but dress up in crappy, tired-joke costumes anyway, that I find so frustrating, and which lies at the heart of my dislike of such pressures. I'm as certain as I can be (from conversations with other human beings while not in the presence of adults dressed as bumble bees, sexy nurses or - dare I say it - zombies) that most of us are well and truly fed up with people dressing up in unoriginal costumes year after year, and assuming that they look absolutely hilarious. the problem is, any dissent is met with sneers and finger-pointing, combined with accusations of being party poopers or just plain miserable.

Well, for the record, I'm neither: I enjoy a good party as much as anyone (finding a good party, however, is a work of art) and I am, despite my regular rants, not at all miserable (as anyone who has read my book: 'Signs of (a) Life' will attest). I do, however, know what I find amusing, entertaining or downright hilarious, and thousands of people painting their faces and wearing cheap outfits to make visual jokes (which were all made last year and the year before that and the year before THAT, etc....) falls into the category of 'none of the above' on the multi-choice answer sheet.

I know that it will probably make little difference, and in all honesty I don't really care if nobody changes their approach to Halloween, but I do think that it's reasonable to voice a different opinion of the whole schemozzle, and to stand up to say what I feel many people might like to say. Halloween is silly - unless you're a little kid, in which case I completely get the point. It has, unfortunately, ceased to be silly in a funny way...Halloween is merely an excuse for commercial enterprises to make money out of us, but increasingly, Halloween is becoming the time of year when people who don't really fit in, try to do so by donning home-made zombie outfits (as perhaps the most prevalent example) and being deeply unamusing.